Too Cool? Not Cool Enough?
Finding the Baby Name Sweet Spot

e made waves recently by writing a piece for The Daily Beast about Hipster Names. Almost universally, the cry went up: Oh no! I’ve given my baby a hipster name! “I have a one-year-old named Matilda,” one mom wrote. “I hate you.”

Ooops, sorry. We love the name Matilda. Really! We’re just a little confused about why "hipster" has become such a dirty word.

Or not. I mean, we do get it, in a way. There’s something sneering, something dismissive about branding someone or something “hipster.” It connotes the feeling that someone (or something) is trying too hard to be cool, which of course is the definition of uncool.

On the other hand, what are you supposed to do: be deliberately uncool? Call your kid Jennifer, or Jean, or something that thumbs its nose at the entire planet of style?

Would not caring about style lead you to a transcendentally cool name? Or a thoroughly uncool one?

Insert deep sigh here.

The real question on many parents’ minds: how do you choose a name that’s genuinely stylish and interesting, but that’s neither too hipsterish or too uncool?

Let’s play (and for you Message Board fans, this would make a great Name Game):

Hipster: OSCAR Uncool: ORIN Sweet: OZIAS, O’BRIEN, OMAR? Too cool: EVA Uncool: EILEEN Sweet: ESTELLE, EMER, EUDORA? Hipster: ATTICUS Uncool: JULIUS Sweet: CAIUS, HORATIO, TARQUIN? Hipster: JUNE, AUGUST Uncool: APRIL Sweet: MAY, MONDAY, EASTER? Too cool: LENNON Uncool: STARR Sweet: GEORGE, PAUL, ROCK?